The Sociopragmatics of Emotion

Showcasing a new approach that broadens the scope of emotion research, this groundbreaking book builds on growing recognition that emotion is a pivotal factor for understanding human language, communication, and social interaction. It is a must read for academic researchers and students interested in the captivating topic of human emotion.

Emotion plays a critical role in every human interaction and permeates all social activity. Displaying, responding to, and talking about emotions is thus central to human language, communication, and social interaction. However, emotions are multidimensional, indeterminate, and inherently situated phenomena, which makes studying them in contextualised settings challenging for researchers. This groundbreaking book illustrates what a sociopragmatic perspective brings to the broader scholarly understanding of emotion and its role in social life, and sets out to lay the necessary foundations for a sociopragmatic theorisation of emotion. It brings together a renowned team of multidisciplinary scholars to demonstrate how evaluation, relationships, and morality are central to any account of emotions in discourse and interaction. It also exemplifies how a sociopragmatic approach to emotions pays more attention to the role that different discourse systems play in how emotions are expressed, interpreted, responded to, and talked about across different languages and cultures.